RJR Auction of Unit May Tell
How It Can Lift Its Stock Price

If RJR Nabisco Holdings can't spin off Nabisco to boost its stock price because of lawsuit fears, how can it sell off its international tobacco business?

The answer is a legal tangle, but in accepting bids Monday in an auction of its international unit -- which could culminate in a deal for between $6.5 billion and $7 billion within days or weeks -- RJR Nabisco appears to believe it can keep the plaintiffs' lawyers at bay. The way it...